


Citadel of Sanctuary

by lferion



Series: Storage-verse [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Highlander: The Series, Original Work
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: fan_flashworks, Gen, High Places, Metaphysical Geometry, Mini-Wrimo, Quintuple Drabble, Sanctuary, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9346376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: High on the green hill was a citadel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking.
> 
> First posted to fan-flashworks [here](http://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/412798.html) for Amnesty 20, challenge 'Triangle.'
> 
> A little of the tale of the third point is here: [Alphabetical Order](https://archiveofourown.org/works/171130).

* * *

High on the green hill was a citadel. Oh, it looked like an old-fashioned, out-of-date, anachronistic temple to some long forgotten deity of obscure origin and nature, but it was a citadel. A stronghold. A place of safety and strength, rooted in the bones of the earth, fed by the green vigor of the trees, watered by a spring that welled up ceaselessly from the unfathomable depths of the rock. Flame shimmered in a crystal that caught light from the sun, flashed rainbows over the smooth floor, the tall pillars. There were no weapons visible, no armed guards, no dike, no shielding wall, no mighty gate that ordinary eyes might see, yet citadel it was, guarding it's secrets and all who might attain the safety it offered with fierce, serene and undefeated will-power-presence-grace-spirit.

But those who called it a temple were not wrong, and indeed it was old, its lines and structure long out of fashion, the spirit it housed dismissed from mind and thought ages since, its origins lost from memory, unrecorded in any tale or tome. Even Methos did not remember, if he had ever known. Yet there it was, had been, would continue to be: the Citadel of Stillness-in-Center.

It was the balance, the paired focus with the Citadel of Illusion-of-Space-in-Time that was generally to be found in the middle of things, visible and invisible all at once, now in one capitol plaza, now on a plinth on a popular beach, now an attraction in the fairway of an amusement park, at a state fair. There was a connection between them that had nothing to do with the realities of physics, with distance or duration or the patterns of the planets in their courses. Need connected them, made it possible to pass from one to the other, to speak or touch or merely breathe the air of one while standing in the other. A singularity of solace. 

There had been a third focus point once, another fixed place, anchored by sea and sky and shore, but it had taken the brunt of the wrath of the Time Lords in one of their crusades against things they did not understand, and now it was silent, a blank spot, a closed door. It no longer even stood on the same planet as either of the others, where once all three had been on Earth. One day, the rift might be healed, the full balance regained. But until then, the third temple hid on Storage, still set between sea and sky and sand, holding in its heart an imperishable flame. One day harmony would be restored. Until then, Sanctuary and Delight would have to do what they could, their two spirits linked, even when their forms were far from each other, and the people that once knew them reached for the stars. In the end, neither Time nor Distance would separate any of them. All would be well. They could wait, hold their secrets in trust, help whom they could.


End file.
